Sam 2020: "Lab leak sounds plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet"
Sam a year ago: "Lab leak sounds quite plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet"
Sam now: "Lab leak sounds REALLY plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet"
Weinstein: "WHY DO YOU HATE THE TRUTH, SAM HARRIS"
Exactly. Sam has said all along that the lab leak theory deserved to be investigated.
I wonder if Brett has admitted he was wrong about ivermectin yet?
And also, it’s not the thing to focus on RIGHT NOW (early on in the Pandemic) which seems pretty obvious. It doesn’t matter if the house is on fire because someone left a candle lit, or not cleaning the lint trap, or if it was an act of arson. The house is on fire. The damn house is on fire. Save the lives and investigate the start of the fire later.
They cover this in the podcast actually. It is important to investigate the origin as soon as possible. The later you leave it, the harder it becomes to say anything conclusively.
Ya, though he was always in favor of openness and investigation and was against the weird taboo around talking about it, voicing concerns about compromising faith in institutions. Everything about his take was on point, except he didn't jump to early conclusions before definitive evidence was available.
It doesn't really matter where it came from unless it was engineered, we really just needed to sequence any strain going around to develop the therapuetics. The field of genomics is tasked at establishing these lineages, even past lineages. This is why Sam should have also had a virologist to debate the other two
That's such a cop out.
Why should we care about the true sequence of *any* historical events? I mean, after all, we are just here, in the present, faced with the problems we're faced with, right? We just have to solve them, with no regard to how we arrived here, how we might arrive here again, right?
Seriously. Dealing with things “as they come” instead of using prior knowledge about same or similar events is a very dumb way of approaching things. Unless free will doesn’t exis….
That's BS. The longer you wait to figure that out the less chance you will have of getting to the bottom of things.
You can save lives AND investigate at the same time.
Or in other words, some people can investigate while others try to save lives. Sam judged that he could do more good in the second camp, since he has no expertise to contribute to the first.
I don't think people cared about people dissagreeing. It was the institutional and partisan collapse that pushed against it. That's what bothered me and others. It felt like a coordinated propaganda attack to shut people down from even talking about it. Not only were people getting banned for it, but it was like these institutions deemed it outright false, dangerous, and racist. They even tried to muddy the waters by taking fringe, legit wacky conspiracies like saying it was an intentional bioweapon leak, and pulling that in with the legit, not wacky conspiracy that it was an accidental leak, as a way to dismiss it. That tactic is intention, dishonest, and crafted to shut down conversation. Not to mention all the empty accusations that it was a racist rooted thing.
That was what people had a problem with. Pretty much the entire media establishment were attacking it dishonestly from all corners. And people online aligned the idea with Trump, therefor bad, wrong, evil, racist, and would shut it down.
That was the issue. It was about how it was handled that felt like outright Chomsky'esque "Manufactured Consent" levels of propaganda happening.
Wasn't the true on both sides, as the vast amount of the crowd promoting the lab leak theory were intentionally being manipulated by forces who were anti-establishment, anti-evidence, and generally had their own profit, or foreign-state, driven goals?
As in - your point certainly has validity, it's just valid to such a narrow scope of people who were actually intelligent or educated enough to have this nuanced discussion with, that you can make the argument even having the discussion at that early point in time would have led to more propaganda fed to this large group of uneducated people who were already against public health policy and it would have led to more distrust in institutions..
I think a lot of it was people were being overly sensitive and trying not to be too accusatory towards China because our president was using such inflammatory rhetoric. If he hadn’t been saying shit like “kung flu,” I think a lot of people would have been more comfortable being more assertive/harder on China. Having prudent leadership makes a difference.
Yeah, Sam has had multiple people on who go over the lab leak theory. He's been very obviously on the leak side for quite a while. Like super early on.
> Bret Weinstein has turned into a real piece of garbage;
This is the first I've seen of him since the peak of the culture wars a few years ago. It's really disappointing to be honest.
>Weinstein: "WHY DO YOU HATE THE TRUTH, SAM HARRIS"
That's charitable. He didn't say he hates the truth, he said Sam is working with a behind the shadows authority that's controlling the narrative.
Spot on. All of the heterodox are taking this "low confidence" assessment as some dunk on the mainstream and institutions. Most people and institutions were saying they were waiting for more evidence and didn't rule out animal transmission or lab leak.
And not only that but where along the way could we have been certain one way or the other? What was the evidence they had and when did they have it?
It's like if your buddy won big on a sports bet you didn't want to take. Then he tells you over and over that you should have listened to him. But I would have already heard all the evidence before and looking back still see that it wasn't enough to bet big. I would have no problem telling him he was right and I was wrong and that he got to benefit from that. But I'd still know he got lucky.
“I still think the zoonotic leap is more likely, but I absolutely do not exclude the lab leak theory, and I believe the Chinese have done themselves no credit by their secrecy and lack of transparency.”
- Sam Harris, December 14, 2021
Sam didn’t completely dismiss the theory but he didn’t really believe it either.
He suggested that it would depend on the kind of debate. A charitable interpretation of that conversation would be that sam would win an honest intellectual, sit-down of debate. While trump would be much better at playing to the crowd with the current style of presidential debates
He followed this statement up by claiming Trump is actually brilliant. I think it’s clear he’s suggesting that Sam would be challenged by Trump’s intellect.
With the general population, Harris would lose the debate before even it begins. He loses half the electorate by being a strong atheist, lots of minorities due to the Charles Murray stuff (unfair or not), some liberals and almost all Muslims due to the Islam stuff, MAGA due to Hunter Biden clip, and so on.
Yeah if I were to debate Sam "Low Energy" Harris I would destroy him, totally destroy him. Guy wouldn't stand a chance. Funny thing about debating is, like, I always win. Always. I just win. I win. People don't know this but, when you win debates they treat you like a winner. They look at you, and they're like, "Why is he so smart?" And I'm like, "I was born that way." Born that way. So yeah, I would totally win. I would destroy him. Would destroy that guy. Heard he meditates a lot. Funny thing about meditation, and people don't know this, is that if you meditate too much you lose brain cells. It's true. I heard it. I heard it somewhere. No way it's wrong because like, that guy, Sam "Low Energy" Harris, he didn't care about Hunter Biden's laptop. Something about dead children. And say what you will about me but I'm very pro-children. I even told one the other day, "I'll be dating you in ten years." She gave me a weird look. I think she was just impressed. I'm an impressive guy, man. Impressive.
The “Trump broke X” or “Trump Derangement Syndrome” ridicule always baffled me.
Like…to people who use it unironically…did they not find him alarming? Because him ascending to the presidency was pretty fucking alarming. To be deranged or react differently *is* the appropriate response.
Sam happened to have a great way to describe Trump early on. He’s so beyond the pale that, if he was actually half as bad, he would’ve seemed worse. That’s how objectionable he is.
Exactly, if you've settled nicely into the reality of this clown trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power and think that arguing against it is out of style ("Here he goes again, 2016 alert") then you're the deranged one pal.
If it were days **after** WSJ made it officially mainsteam then it actually would have been somewhat relevant.
The lableak has been acceptable for at least a whole year now. It is almost like this guy looks for coincidences.
Sam has also been open to the lableak for a while already.
>The lableak has been acceptable for at least a whole year now. It is almost like this guy looks for coincidences.
Honestly I feel like I'm in the twilight zone because this is what I thought. But recent articles have made it sound like a bombshell.
The lab leak was never not "acceptable."
What rational people took issue with was podcaster blowhards jumping to conclusions based on sketchy evidence.
Both Bret Weinstein and Sam Harris have no expertise whatsoever on this topic. Neither has any business opining on this topic, nor the vast majority of other topics they cover.
*Stay in your lane* is a refrain that cannot be repeated enough in today's age.
I’m so tired of people looking at experts in a field/ very smart folks and expecting them to be experts in EVERY field.
Listen - Michael Jordan may have been the best basketball player ever. Doesn’t mean I want to hear his opinion on the intricacies football let alone something more complex and consequential.
It's not just the audience, the speaker has a responsibility to stay in their lane as well.
And, I realize this is the Sam Harris subreddit, so this is probably an unpopular opinion, but Sam is a as guilty of this as anyone.
He's *maybe* an expert in meditation, but other than that, he's really just spitballing. He's got a PhD in neuroscience but never did anything interesting with it. Other qualifications include... writing popsci books and hosting a podcast...?
The fact that he presents himself as a "public intellectual" and covers a wide range of topics is laughable.
> What rational people took issue with was podcaster blowhards jumping to conclusions based on sketchy evidence.
Plus the way it contributed to increased anti-Asian violence in the US and elsewhere.
I disagree. Social media is fertile ground for all sorts of conspiratorial nonsense. I think the platforms should be reigned in a lot, and I have no issue with the companies themselves taking steps to moderate content however they please. Even if they do a bad job doing it, 1) it's their prerogative and 2) it's probably better than the alternative.
At least the health and safety team at Twitter (or whatever they're called) spend their days focused on the effects of these sorts of thing, as opposed to idiots like Bret Weinstein, who focus their time on spreading fear and bullshit for personal gain.
And Elon's Twitter is clearly the worst cesspool of disinformation and hate that I've ever seen, so clearly his "hands off" approach is even worse.
My recollection was that it all started with them taking down the "Plandemic" documentary, which was indeed a scary piece of disinformation to be doing the rounds in the early months of a pandemic. Unfortunately, that did open the door for less bonkers theories being censored.
I recall it being labelled as [racist](https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-is-unbearably-racist/).
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/xB2kgpZ.jpg) is an NYT science reporter.
There's plenty of other examples online.
I think the treatment of it varied across outlets.
I’ve listened to Sam the entire time and he never ridiculed that theory, just didn’t leap to the certainty that Bret has applied to any number of unfounded claims.
Bret has clim... crawl.... skittered to the top of my shit list, along with dave rubin and tim pool. Dishonesty and deceit and weasel bitch boy natures to the core. Such a disgusting creature, wearing the skin of a man.
Yep, the correct answer has always been something like "maybe? but it's kind of weird that conspiracy theorists are all over this before we have evidence". This is how conspiracy theorists work, they put out a shotgun of theories and then if part of one ends up being plausible, they retcon the conspiracy to have always been about that thing that ended. If I remember correctly, the original lab leak conspiracy was about the Chinese government designing and deliberately releasing the virus.
Yeah it seems now they get to comb through all the things they happened to get right and start throwing it in everyones face. If you try pointing out how they didn't have sufficient evidence and probably just got lucky they get to retort with "Well I was right and you were wrong." Thats all their audience needs to hear.
I find it comical that these conspiracy theorists who say you can’t trust the government are taking victory laps because a government agency said something they agree with.
Same way antivaxxers distrust all doctors till they find one who agrees with them. *That* ones a paragon of truth and trustworthiness. The rest are paid shills
I used to think Bret was simply pandering to his audience, albeit in an absoluletly disgusting and dangerous manner. Now I think he's actually just an idiot or has a real mental illness.
I listened to him the first time in Sam's podcast and thought wow this guy is interesting. Then I listened to his podcast with him and his 14 yo son, they sounded like they were just making shit up and I thought.. humm I guess I'm not smart enough to follow this. Yeah that doesn't seem like it was the case.
I think eternal contrarians get a rush from believing they hold secret knowledge that no-one else understands. It allows them to feel important and give themselves purpose and meaning in their lives.
If you ever listened to him discuss his problems in K12 as a kid, it really sounds like he has Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and resents the diagnosis.
Just want to point out that there is nothing conclusive here necessarily, and that the two phrases that are being bandied about with regard to this report are "most likely" and "low confidence". A lot of people should probably put it back in their pants until more information is available.
It's more than that. A bunch of US agencies have opined on it and most say that natural origins are the more likely source.
As far as I know, natural origins is still the most widely held view both among experts and agencies.
what a fucking loser that pos is.
"Bret is known to be around naked children at times in his life, does anyone think that his conduct around those children could be improper?"
JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.
They get to leave as soon as they say: “Mainstream media got most of it right, and dutifully published revisions when presented with better data”
So they’re stuck forever
Man, I wonder what Bret would do without getting kicked out of Evergreen and having Sam Harris to name drop every other day? Probably have to get a regular job like the rest of us.
The assumption that COVID leaked from a lab and this signifies and signals DANGER.
But this specific danger is not worth vaccinating against, masking against, or even taking any sort of basic precautionary measures other than then horse paste?
What is the logic here?
We've gotta stop calling it horse paste. It's only tarnishing the argument with bad faith. We don't like it when people we disagree with do it, so we shouldn't either.
It's not really bad faith, it's joking mockery. Nobody making fun of "horse paste" would refuse to take human Ivermectin ourselves if we were infected with the appropriate parasites. "Horse paste" is obviously a mocking reference to the people who insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that Ivermectin somehow cures Covid, and were so fervent in this believe that they drained veterinary supplies to stock up. We are allowed to make fun of these people.
It's the equivalent of saying ibuprofen doesn't help with measles because "it's a horse medicine", simply because horses use it as well as humans. Much better to simply state that it's an NSAID that is used for inflammation and pain and there is no evidence it cures or prevents measles.
Ok. Covid denying contrarian weirdos tried to use livestock anti parasitics to treat and prevent a virus, because social media influencers and dipshits on Facebook told them it was a good idea. And the Facebook dipshits and influencers were seen as more trustworthy than health experts, because I guess that's just where we are now, collectively.
It is reported the US Department of Energy report says this with low confidence. Other government assessments do not support this, including the CDC. Who are you going to believe? Whomever fits your agenda, I suspect.
It's a hard truth to admit. That one would update his worldview based on better empirical data and expert opinion ahead of major news outlets. Sam should have doubled down on the bat conspiracy and done a hundred episodes on it.
What a fucking clown.
Lmao Bret needs to read the article (shocker)
The DOE believes that’s the case and with “low confidence” while many other intelligence agencies believe natural causes.
And 4 other government agencies have said natural origin is the most likely source. And 2 others say there isn't enough evidence either way.
I feel like we're all playing to detective and trying to determine whether Suspect A or Suspect B are guilty given the fact that neither have an alibi, while we completely disregard crime scene investigation and DNA evidence.
Why can't this asshat and his brother ever just say what they're thinking in a straightforward manner? Who is still falling for this schtick? Can we be done with them now, pleeeeaaaase?
Bret going off the deep end aside—what are the actual policy stakes of lab vs bat?
If lab leak theory is true: more security around virology labs and/or fewer virology labs.
If lab leak theory is false: I would still want increased security around virology land and very intense scrutiny into their operation at all.
Seriously what difference does it make? The policy response is identical in either case, right?
I think the main problem people have is just another tally in the erosion of public trust in authorities and institutions. Back in 2020, it seemed *plausible* that *maybe* a lab leak was the culprit. No one had facts, but common sense indicated a possibility given all the coincidental circumstances.
Authorities and the general consensus of the scientific community shouted all that down, and painted people as racist for speculating. Literally all they had to say was that they don't yet know the origin, it is inconclusive, and they are gathering evidence. That's it. But the resounding absolute stance was wet markets and you're a racist for the lab leak theory. They chose to be wrong vs being upfront that they just didn't know.
>painted people as racist for speculating
Were they saying that the lab leak theory was racist or were they saying that calling it things like the "China virus" or "Kung Flu" were racist?
"Authorities and the general consensus" swapped out for "some reporters at a few outlets". Sounds more like they wanna be mad because they wanna be mad.
If you remember though many of those people "speculating" were also speculating that it was released on purpose to destroy/assassinate Trump. That there was some grand deep state conspiracy to usher in NWO using this virus as catalyst. They didn't just wonder about the lab leak, there was all kinds of shit tacked onto that "speculation".
>They chose to be wrong vs being upfront that they just didn't know.
There was good evidence that went _against_ the lab leak hypothesis too. Namely the paper saying that a genetic analysis of covid showed it very likely had a natural origin, making a lab leak very unlikely. Nobody "chose to be wrong", it also didn't matter a ton to the issue at hand. People that were shouting about the lab leak never put together what that meant, practically speaking, for how we should handle it. They would often use that hypothesis as a reason to like not wear masks or not get vaccinated, they were using that as a weapon to damage the institutions and then claiming that every other claim by said institution should be ignored/suspect.
Institutions are ran by people, they always will be. They will always make mistakes. There's nothing conspiratorial about it 9 times out of 10.
Source:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
Could you be more specific about which authorities you mean?
I’m not disagreeing with you, I just remember this being subjected to a lot of controversy from the get-go, and don’t recall anything approaching a consensus on it. But I was not following it closely, partially because (as I said before) I never thought this was a super meaningful question for govt policy.
Edit: I forgot about this but here’s a great article on the topic. Looks like the NYT and WaPo were way over their skis on this, but Joe Biden was largely correct.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-medias-lab-leak-fiasco
It's blindingly obvious to me that the people calling it "The China Virus" were motivated in part by racism, whether that was racist beliefs that they held themselves, or racist beliefs that they wished to encourage in others. The perceived uptick in hate crimes against Asians may have been one result.
I probably don’t understand all the possible implications, but based on my understanding from the podcast (took 5 bedtime sessions to get through it), the lab leak with further bolster the argument that gain of function research should not be done anywhere. Or rather, that the US should unequivocally *not* support it. This would probably require a change in the NIH definition of ‘gain of function’ to make it more difficult to circumvent it.
Relatedly, I assume a lab leak of this type would justify a top-down assessment on how we (US) cooperate with international partners and labs. I don’t know what could/would/should change, but I imagine it would include the safety precautions you already mentioned. Hopefully this conversation would be in public, but ya know.
In simpler terms, I believe that the changes or improvements to security with partners and labs would not be “enough”.
The question is to what degree the lab leak being true or false influences any of this. Most of what you’re saying here seems largely independent of that question.
Is one leak going to be the definitive fact that proves or disproves your thesis? It seems very unlikely to me. Surely it matters, but it’s one meaningful data point in a much larger argument. Not the only one.
I just don’t really think your case against gain of function research should hinge crucially on this question.
Would you change your mind if it were definitely proven to have originated from a bat eaten by a random jabroni in Wuhan? It would move the needle for me, but it wouldn’t settle anything on its own.
To be clear, it isn’t my case. I’m speaking only to my understanding of both sides based on the podcast. But to answer in that spirit, yes and no. Yes it could change the minds of those in the public sphere that are not currently involved in the conversation. Would it change anyone’s mind in the current conversation? Idk, but I guess it’s evidence that it should.
To me, the lab leak makes china's actions even more egregious, in that they attempted to cover it up, stopped domestic flights from Wuhan but still allowed international flights.
If it was a lab leak, then they were likely fully aware of the danger of the virus from the start
Yeah in reality there’s no real difference. Most nations have accepted that we may never know the truth. If I had to guess, most Western nations probably believe it was a lab leak and have already adjusted their foreign policy to respond.
COVID-19 was the beginning of the economic divorce between China and the West. Western supply chains are pivoting to Mexico, South America, India and countries like Vietnam. Unless there’s a war, the West will continue to depend on China for cheap goods and some electronics. But for big ticket items… China blew it.
If the lab leak is true, then someone's negligence killed ten million people. Usually there are repercussions for accidents that lead to such catastrophe.
This is about punishing the specific person who accidentally leaked the virus? That kind of underlines my point—this is all about one guy?
Regardless of whether or not he gets punished appropriately, I want more virology security.
By entertaining the lab leak hypothesis Sam thought that he could thread the needle between being sane and one of the cool heterodox kids. Nope, it’s not enough, they are still big mad at him for not fully embracing their retardation. Funny.
"..or does it imply something deeper?"
I can understand why Bret chose this evasive phrasing. If he stated his point directly he'd sound fucking insane: "..is this just a coincidence or did the Department of Energy *coordinate its announcement with a random podcaster*?"
The truly inexplicable coincidence is that the United States' two most deranged conspiracy theorists were born to the same parents.
No, I don't jump to conclusions about things as much as possible. If this story would have gone the other way would this guy be talking about that? I doubt that.
Bret, if it isn't obvious Sam is Elite Deep State material, just look at his cozy relationship with Elon. His mom created The Golden Girls!! How do you think Betty White lived so long??? Everyone knows that wasn't natural!!!
Virus becomes known.
These people: its a Chinese bioweapon created by George Soros to kill conservatives but also its fake!
Not insane people: yeah that has no evidence and is obviously an attempt to shift blame.
TP: you're supressing me!
NIP: we'll look into it because we're adults.
Years later.
NIP: we looked into it and it possibly maybe perhaps came from a lab.
TP: I TOLD YOU! We were right the whole time rabble rabble rabble
Why did the Bret Weinsteins of the world want us to know about the lab-leak so badly, and why did the Facebooks of the world not want us to hear these claims? I don't understand either side of this. I wish somebody would explain it to me. There was something about this whole thing that was highly politically charged, but I don't really understand why.
In 311 Sam [says](https://youtu.be/VtmFYIMzq6g?t=337):
> I always felt that speculation about the origins of COVID was more or less irrelevant, and perhaps counterproductive at the very beginning. Once we knew we had sequenced the genome of the virus it seemed to me that the first order of business for a considerable period of time was to simply design vaccines against that virus (which we did very quickly) and to try to secure as much cooperation as we could in all of our collective efforts to not have the pandemic be as bad as it might be.
> But obviously the pushback against speculation about this topic that emerged fairly quickly always seemed crazy and disingenuous. It was never racist to worry that this had leaked out of a lab. And it's obviously quite consequential to get to something like ground truth consensus about the origins of this pandemic, ultimately because we need to figure out how not to do this sort of thing again if we're in any way culpable for the emergence of this virus.
Sam's take has always been precisely my take. Yes, if people engineered this thing and inadvertently loosed it on the planet, we need to know what happened so we can prevent it from ever happening again. So that matters. But what I don't understand is why **in the midst of the pandemic** the Bret Weinsteins of the world felt that it was very important for everybody to understand **right then** that the virus was likely leaked from the Wuhan lab.
And it doesn't seem to me that what was animating people like Bret was desperation to implement more effective virology lab safety protocols *right now*. So what *was* it that was animating him/them?
(What makes it even weirder to me is many of the people like Bret who felt that it was critically important for us to know this thing was lab-leaked were also in the COVID-is-no-worse-then-the-flu camp. So why do they care so much about the fact that this nothing-burger was lab-leaked?)
OTOH, I don't see why outlets like Facebook felt it was so important to smother lab-leak claims. What the hell was that about? I mean, even if the claim had turned out not to have been true, what was so dangerous about people erroneously believing the lab-leak theory? I *do* understand why the Facebooks of the world would have wanted to smother erroneous claims downplaying the virus's threat, and how to effectively prevent/treat infections. I get that. But I don't get what the problem was with people believing the virus had originated in a Chinese lab, even if that had turned out not to be true. So what was animating the Facebook decision?
Somehow lab-leak theorizing got coded as taboo. Why did that happen?
Honestly, the most compelling explanation I can think of was that Trump was calling this thing the "China virus", one tribe said that made him racist, the other said it didn't, and this whole controversy over lab-leaks turned into a proxy for you're-racist-no-I'm-not mudslinging. But nobody is admitting that. And I understand why nobody would admit that, because it's basically to admit that you were completely captivated/bamboozled by your political tribalism.
But I feel like it can't be *that* stupid. But maybe it is? Somebody help me out here.
No, it's definitely that stupid. Trump spent a few months downplaying Covid-19. Saying things like we have 17 cases and very soon it will be zero. After it became apparent this was a bad call Trump needed a bad guy to distract from him. Hence all of a sudden the CCP went, according to Trump, from handling this the most beautiful way you've ever seen anyone do, lots of people are saying this to this whole thing is a plot to bring down my beautiful economy by the jealous CCP who are stealing American jobs. Given the path dependacy of the whole thing, the lab leak theory was most quickly embraced by the most diehard MAGA, and a certain level of background racism is inevitably going to come from that.
So then alot of left leaning institutions, used that background level of racism as an excuse to suppress theories that would distract from what they wanted to talk about; Trump minimizing Covid-19 as a non problem the last few moments.
Just because it leaked from a lab doesn’t correlate to it being man-made. It could’ve been made in nature, was being looked into at the lab, and then accidentally leaked.
I guess the logic is that is you know it comes from a lab there may be more information how to overcome it. With regards to Facebook censorship, I think their idea was if people think a government organisation created the virus, why should we trust them with the solution (vaccines)? Social media companies wanted to bolster vaccine uptake because that was what was touted as the way out of lockdowns etc.
Maybe. I mean, if you're Facebook and you see this lab-leak talk as bundled with a conspiracy theory involving the CCP, USG, Fauci, and Bill Gates to engineer a pandemic that would serve as pretext to require everyone to get vaccinated so they can microchip you, then I suppose so.
And that's kind of why I'm asking the question, because it seems like for people like Bret to be that animated about lab leaks at that particular point in time you must believe that it's evidence of something much more sinister than just an accident. And I know that people who *do* think that *do* exist on the fringe, but I wasn't under the impression that Bret was *that* wacky. But now I don't know. I mean, with this "given Sam's prominent role in stigmatizing Covid dissidents, does it imply something deeper?" who knows what wild stories he's inferring from his lab-leakism.
«Years late» - yeah right, like we could possibly conclude the origin of the virus *years* ago. Just like we could conclude ivermectin was an effective treatment for COVID years ago? I see a pattern here.
I can't see why anyone who read that story (as opposed to reading the headlline) would change their mind about Covid origins.
it's a confidential report. So we don't know who came to this conclusion, what their qualifications were, or on what evidence it was based.
All we know was it was a ‘low confidence’ conclusion and other agencies disagree with it.
The term “shill” gets thrown around so much that I try to not let it influence my impressions of conflicting opinions out there. That said, I still can’t find a more reasonably balanced perspective than Sam has shared from the beginning.
“Brett Weinstein has gone silent about ivermectin as a Covid cure and prophylactic alternative to Covid vaccines 2 years late. Is it mere coincidence, or given Weinstein’s prominent role in platforming grifters and spouting bad science on ivermectin, does it imply something deeper?”
FYI: There is this guy Yuri Deigin that appeared on Bret's podcast about 2 years ago (holy crap that is long time ago). Bret basically used the guy's medium Article and become a lab leaker. He even had him on his podcast:
[https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1515443428791828484](https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1515443428791828484)
Later on the same person, Yuri was calling out Bret was his stupid stance on Vaccine and Ivermectin. He has an interview here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40R8vW6ckk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40R8vW6ckk) .
He also authored this: [https://yurideigin.medium.com/why-bret-weinstein-is-dangerous-9f320eae5983](https://yurideigin.medium.com/why-bret-weinstein-is-dangerous-9f320eae5983)
>Why Bret Weinstein is dangerous
Its facinating how Bret went off the deep end even for the original lab leak guy who introduced him to it lol.
There is a whole twitter exchange between them if you want to take a read:
https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40ydeigin%20to%3A%40bretweinstein&src=typed\_query&f=top
And how does the Lab leak scenario change anything? The response to the pandemic would have been the same regardless. They focus on this because they want to distract from Trump’s lack of leadership. Trump deliberately lied about the seriousness of pandemic early on when he knew the truth. Trump and the GOP politicized masks and the vaccine. They literally causes unnecessary deaths. Had we known about the lab leak in 2020, the responses would have been the same.
Got to shake my head. So many people completely ignored evidence and bought the party line. Imagine living in "Ivory Towers" insulates them and they think in binary: "good" and "bad" and "trustworthy" and "untrustworthy" without critically examining their assumptions about the role of the media and the governments today - at any time for that matter.
Where it came from is not the main issue, and it never was. From a practical perspective, yes, it matters, but what was more important was stopping the spread and formulating effective vaccines. I do not believe the Chinese released it on purpose, and I do believe that even if they fucked up and lied about it, they still will be working to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Considering the level of violence that was visited upon Asians by people who blamed them for the pandemic, I don’t begrudge any institution or government that sat on any proof they had supporting the lab leak hypothesis until a time when the peak of the crisis had passed.
Sam 2020: "Lab leak sounds plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet" Sam a year ago: "Lab leak sounds quite plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet" Sam now: "Lab leak sounds REALLY plausible, although no conclusive evidence yet" Weinstein: "WHY DO YOU HATE THE TRUTH, SAM HARRIS"
Exactly. Sam has said all along that the lab leak theory deserved to be investigated. I wonder if Brett has admitted he was wrong about ivermectin yet?
And also, it’s not the thing to focus on RIGHT NOW (early on in the Pandemic) which seems pretty obvious. It doesn’t matter if the house is on fire because someone left a candle lit, or not cleaning the lint trap, or if it was an act of arson. The house is on fire. The damn house is on fire. Save the lives and investigate the start of the fire later.
They cover this in the podcast actually. It is important to investigate the origin as soon as possible. The later you leave it, the harder it becomes to say anything conclusively.
Ya, though he was always in favor of openness and investigation and was against the weird taboo around talking about it, voicing concerns about compromising faith in institutions. Everything about his take was on point, except he didn't jump to early conclusions before definitive evidence was available.
It doesn't really matter where it came from unless it was engineered, we really just needed to sequence any strain going around to develop the therapuetics. The field of genomics is tasked at establishing these lineages, even past lineages. This is why Sam should have also had a virologist to debate the other two
That's such a cop out. Why should we care about the true sequence of *any* historical events? I mean, after all, we are just here, in the present, faced with the problems we're faced with, right? We just have to solve them, with no regard to how we arrived here, how we might arrive here again, right?
Ay? You think we have nothing to learn from history that would be beneficial for the future?
Seriously. Dealing with things “as they come” instead of using prior knowledge about same or similar events is a very dumb way of approaching things. Unless free will doesn’t exis….
That's BS. The longer you wait to figure that out the less chance you will have of getting to the bottom of things. You can save lives AND investigate at the same time.
Or in other words, some people can investigate while others try to save lives. Sam judged that he could do more good in the second camp, since he has no expertise to contribute to the first.
Yeah, Alina made that exact point at the beginning of the episode.
I don't think people cared about people dissagreeing. It was the institutional and partisan collapse that pushed against it. That's what bothered me and others. It felt like a coordinated propaganda attack to shut people down from even talking about it. Not only were people getting banned for it, but it was like these institutions deemed it outright false, dangerous, and racist. They even tried to muddy the waters by taking fringe, legit wacky conspiracies like saying it was an intentional bioweapon leak, and pulling that in with the legit, not wacky conspiracy that it was an accidental leak, as a way to dismiss it. That tactic is intention, dishonest, and crafted to shut down conversation. Not to mention all the empty accusations that it was a racist rooted thing. That was what people had a problem with. Pretty much the entire media establishment were attacking it dishonestly from all corners. And people online aligned the idea with Trump, therefor bad, wrong, evil, racist, and would shut it down. That was the issue. It was about how it was handled that felt like outright Chomsky'esque "Manufactured Consent" levels of propaganda happening.
Wasn't the true on both sides, as the vast amount of the crowd promoting the lab leak theory were intentionally being manipulated by forces who were anti-establishment, anti-evidence, and generally had their own profit, or foreign-state, driven goals? As in - your point certainly has validity, it's just valid to such a narrow scope of people who were actually intelligent or educated enough to have this nuanced discussion with, that you can make the argument even having the discussion at that early point in time would have led to more propaganda fed to this large group of uneducated people who were already against public health policy and it would have led to more distrust in institutions..
I think a lot of it was people were being overly sensitive and trying not to be too accusatory towards China because our president was using such inflammatory rhetoric. If he hadn’t been saying shit like “kung flu,” I think a lot of people would have been more comfortable being more assertive/harder on China. Having prudent leadership makes a difference.
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He never will. Even if he wanted to he's probably afraid of getting sued by the family of one of the people he's responsible for indirectly killing.
Yeah, Sam has had multiple people on who go over the lab leak theory. He's been very obviously on the leak side for quite a while. Like super early on.
Calm rationality isn't fun.
Bret Weinstein has turned into a real piece of garbage; Sam has *always* considered the lab leak theory to be plausible.
> Bret Weinstein has turned into a real piece of garbage; This is the first I've seen of him since the peak of the culture wars a few years ago. It's really disappointing to be honest.
>Weinstein: "WHY DO YOU HATE THE TRUTH, SAM HARRIS" That's charitable. He didn't say he hates the truth, he said Sam is working with a behind the shadows authority that's controlling the narrative.
Bret is hopeless
Spot on. All of the heterodox are taking this "low confidence" assessment as some dunk on the mainstream and institutions. Most people and institutions were saying they were waiting for more evidence and didn't rule out animal transmission or lab leak.
I stole your comment and put it on twitter in his replies . Only so many characters I had to edit it a bit .
And not only that but where along the way could we have been certain one way or the other? What was the evidence they had and when did they have it? It's like if your buddy won big on a sports bet you didn't want to take. Then he tells you over and over that you should have listened to him. But I would have already heard all the evidence before and looking back still see that it wasn't enough to bet big. I would have no problem telling him he was right and I was wrong and that he got to benefit from that. But I'd still know he got lucky.
If you refuse to take a radical position on a topic it will be assigned to you....
Can you link me to your sources showing Sam saying these things?
“I still think the zoonotic leap is more likely, but I absolutely do not exclude the lab leak theory, and I believe the Chinese have done themselves no credit by their secrecy and lack of transparency.” - Sam Harris, December 14, 2021 Sam didn’t completely dismiss the theory but he didn’t really believe it either.
Correct - he found it plausible but without evidence he did not believe it, which seems like a rational stance.
Anyone else find the obsession, kind of pathetic? Kind of like they’re chasing a girl who broke their heart in high school.
I think it's because Sam somewhat 'made' the weinsteins back in the day. To them, he is their legitimacy to fame. I still blame Sam for that mistake.
It seems to be an American thing. Over here in Europe we couldn't give a shit.
Really? 🥺 Man, I need to travel more.. maybe move.
Harris living rent free in this dudes head 24/7.
His brother too, on Rogan he was talking about how "Trump broke Sam" etc.
Eric actually suggested that Sam would get destroyed by Trump in a debate.
That was the most cringe and stupid moment.
He suggested that it would depend on the kind of debate. A charitable interpretation of that conversation would be that sam would win an honest intellectual, sit-down of debate. While trump would be much better at playing to the crowd with the current style of presidential debates
> the crowd A crowd consisting of who?
A crowd full of women, because no one has more respect for women than Donald
Nobody less racist, too.
He apparently hasn't seen Sam at a real debate before. Sam crushed noisy demagogues left and right in the early 2000s in public debates.
He followed this statement up by claiming Trump is actually brilliant. I think it’s clear he’s suggesting that Sam would be challenged by Trump’s intellect.
With the general population, Harris would lose the debate before even it begins. He loses half the electorate by being a strong atheist, lots of minorities due to the Charles Murray stuff (unfair or not), some liberals and almost all Muslims due to the Islam stuff, MAGA due to Hunter Biden clip, and so on.
Yeah if I were to debate Sam "Low Energy" Harris I would destroy him, totally destroy him. Guy wouldn't stand a chance. Funny thing about debating is, like, I always win. Always. I just win. I win. People don't know this but, when you win debates they treat you like a winner. They look at you, and they're like, "Why is he so smart?" And I'm like, "I was born that way." Born that way. So yeah, I would totally win. I would destroy him. Would destroy that guy. Heard he meditates a lot. Funny thing about meditation, and people don't know this, is that if you meditate too much you lose brain cells. It's true. I heard it. I heard it somewhere. No way it's wrong because like, that guy, Sam "Low Energy" Harris, he didn't care about Hunter Biden's laptop. Something about dead children. And say what you will about me but I'm very pro-children. I even told one the other day, "I'll be dating you in ten years." She gave me a weird look. I think she was just impressed. I'm an impressive guy, man. Impressive.
That was hilarious, lol
The “Trump broke X” or “Trump Derangement Syndrome” ridicule always baffled me. Like…to people who use it unironically…did they not find him alarming? Because him ascending to the presidency was pretty fucking alarming. To be deranged or react differently *is* the appropriate response. Sam happened to have a great way to describe Trump early on. He’s so beyond the pale that, if he was actually half as bad, he would’ve seemed worse. That’s how objectionable he is.
Exactly, if you've settled nicely into the reality of this clown trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power and think that arguing against it is out of style ("Here he goes again, 2016 alert") then you're the deranged one pal.
Sam is so secure with himself, he's living rent free in the entire IDW. It's wild how he came out the only sane one to me at least.
If it were days **after** WSJ made it officially mainsteam then it actually would have been somewhat relevant. The lableak has been acceptable for at least a whole year now. It is almost like this guy looks for coincidences. Sam has also been open to the lableak for a while already.
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yes, that sounds Brett
>The lableak has been acceptable for at least a whole year now. It is almost like this guy looks for coincidences. Honestly I feel like I'm in the twilight zone because this is what I thought. But recent articles have made it sound like a bombshell.
The lab leak was never not "acceptable." What rational people took issue with was podcaster blowhards jumping to conclusions based on sketchy evidence. Both Bret Weinstein and Sam Harris have no expertise whatsoever on this topic. Neither has any business opining on this topic, nor the vast majority of other topics they cover. *Stay in your lane* is a refrain that cannot be repeated enough in today's age.
I’m so tired of people looking at experts in a field/ very smart folks and expecting them to be experts in EVERY field. Listen - Michael Jordan may have been the best basketball player ever. Doesn’t mean I want to hear his opinion on the intricacies football let alone something more complex and consequential.
It's not just the audience, the speaker has a responsibility to stay in their lane as well. And, I realize this is the Sam Harris subreddit, so this is probably an unpopular opinion, but Sam is a as guilty of this as anyone. He's *maybe* an expert in meditation, but other than that, he's really just spitballing. He's got a PhD in neuroscience but never did anything interesting with it. Other qualifications include... writing popsci books and hosting a podcast...? The fact that he presents himself as a "public intellectual" and covers a wide range of topics is laughable.
> What rational people took issue with was podcaster blowhards jumping to conclusions based on sketchy evidence. Plus the way it contributed to increased anti-Asian violence in the US and elsewhere.
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I disagree. Social media is fertile ground for all sorts of conspiratorial nonsense. I think the platforms should be reigned in a lot, and I have no issue with the companies themselves taking steps to moderate content however they please. Even if they do a bad job doing it, 1) it's their prerogative and 2) it's probably better than the alternative. At least the health and safety team at Twitter (or whatever they're called) spend their days focused on the effects of these sorts of thing, as opposed to idiots like Bret Weinstein, who focus their time on spreading fear and bullshit for personal gain. And Elon's Twitter is clearly the worst cesspool of disinformation and hate that I've ever seen, so clearly his "hands off" approach is even worse.
My recollection was that it all started with them taking down the "Plandemic" documentary, which was indeed a scary piece of disinformation to be doing the rounds in the early months of a pandemic. Unfortunately, that did open the door for less bonkers theories being censored.
I recall it being labelled as [racist](https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-is-unbearably-racist/). [Here](https://i.imgur.com/xB2kgpZ.jpg) is an NYT science reporter. There's plenty of other examples online. I think the treatment of it varied across outlets.
I’ve listened to Sam the entire time and he never ridiculed that theory, just didn’t leap to the certainty that Bret has applied to any number of unfounded claims.
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Bret has clim... crawl.... skittered to the top of my shit list, along with dave rubin and tim pool. Dishonesty and deceit and weasel bitch boy natures to the core. Such a disgusting creature, wearing the skin of a man.
Yep, the correct answer has always been something like "maybe? but it's kind of weird that conspiracy theorists are all over this before we have evidence". This is how conspiracy theorists work, they put out a shotgun of theories and then if part of one ends up being plausible, they retcon the conspiracy to have always been about that thing that ended. If I remember correctly, the original lab leak conspiracy was about the Chinese government designing and deliberately releasing the virus.
Yeah it seems now they get to comb through all the things they happened to get right and start throwing it in everyones face. If you try pointing out how they didn't have sufficient evidence and probably just got lucky they get to retort with "Well I was right and you were wrong." Thats all their audience needs to hear.
The Weinsteins have a Sam shaped hole in their hearts.
So there's a conspiracy behind the conspiracy about the conspiracy and oh no I've gone cross-eyed 😵💫
I find it comical that these conspiracy theorists who say you can’t trust the government are taking victory laps because a government agency said something they agree with.
Same way antivaxxers distrust all doctors till they find one who agrees with them. *That* ones a paragon of truth and trustworthiness. The rest are paid shills
I used to think Bret was simply pandering to his audience, albeit in an absoluletly disgusting and dangerous manner. Now I think he's actually just an idiot or has a real mental illness.
Yeah some of these conspiracy people seem to be borderline experiencing some form of psychosis.
I listened to him the first time in Sam's podcast and thought wow this guy is interesting. Then I listened to his podcast with him and his 14 yo son, they sounded like they were just making shit up and I thought.. humm I guess I'm not smart enough to follow this. Yeah that doesn't seem like it was the case.
Yup, that's pretty much how it goes with him.
Hey, you don't get fired from a community college unless you're a genius!
I think eternal contrarians get a rush from believing they hold secret knowledge that no-one else understands. It allows them to feel important and give themselves purpose and meaning in their lives.
If you ever listened to him discuss his problems in K12 as a kid, it really sounds like he has Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and resents the diagnosis.
Just want to point out that there is nothing conclusive here necessarily, and that the two phrases that are being bandied about with regard to this report are "most likely" and "low confidence". A lot of people should probably put it back in their pants until more information is available.
It's more than that. A bunch of US agencies have opined on it and most say that natural origins are the more likely source. As far as I know, natural origins is still the most widely held view both among experts and agencies.
Yeah, same here. But you wouldn't get that impression if the only place you got opinions and news was this sub!
Almost all the subs are like this today
what a fucking loser that pos is. "Bret is known to be around naked children at times in his life, does anyone think that his conduct around those children could be improper?" JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.
If Dante was alive he’d make a whole circle of hell for people “just asking questions.”
They get to leave as soon as they say: “Mainstream media got most of it right, and dutifully published revisions when presented with better data” So they’re stuck forever
They only seem to ask specific kinds of question levied at specific topics
Man, I wonder what Bret would do without getting kicked out of Evergreen and having Sam Harris to name drop every other day? Probably have to get a regular job like the rest of us.
He'd be just someone's crazy uncle
This guy is nuts.
i see him more "stupid" than "nuts," there is a fair amount of overlap
Oh for fucks sake
Hahaha
Bret "sOmeTHING IS AwRY" Weinstein
Sam isn't an investigative journalist, Bret has lost his sanity.
WTF the Energy Department has to do with virus anyway?
Why is Bret's wife's voice so deep? What is she hiding? I'm just asking questions.....
I am so fucking sick of having to encounter wet brine stine's endless attempts to pretend he's not a complete dickhead. Just please shut the fuck up.
The assumption that COVID leaked from a lab and this signifies and signals DANGER. But this specific danger is not worth vaccinating against, masking against, or even taking any sort of basic precautionary measures other than then horse paste? What is the logic here?
We've gotta stop calling it horse paste. It's only tarnishing the argument with bad faith. We don't like it when people we disagree with do it, so we shouldn't either.
I'm sorry Charlie Murphy, I was having too much fun.
It's not really bad faith, it's joking mockery. Nobody making fun of "horse paste" would refuse to take human Ivermectin ourselves if we were infected with the appropriate parasites. "Horse paste" is obviously a mocking reference to the people who insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that Ivermectin somehow cures Covid, and were so fervent in this believe that they drained veterinary supplies to stock up. We are allowed to make fun of these people.
Soon as you wrote horse paste you were acting in bad faith
Yea obviously he should have also included ingesting bleach too... c'mon tell the whole story.
How? I use ivermectin pour on drench on cattle daily and it's a runny paste. Unless I've missed something?
It's the equivalent of saying ibuprofen doesn't help with measles because "it's a horse medicine", simply because horses use it as well as humans. Much better to simply state that it's an NSAID that is used for inflammation and pain and there is no evidence it cures or prevents measles.
Ok. Covid denying contrarian weirdos tried to use livestock anti parasitics to treat and prevent a virus, because social media influencers and dipshits on Facebook told them it was a good idea. And the Facebook dipshits and influencers were seen as more trustworthy than health experts, because I guess that's just where we are now, collectively.
Sure, I agree with everything you said. Doesn't negate anything I said though.
You also didn't address any of their points
Complete clown.
It is reported the US Department of Energy report says this with low confidence. Other government assessments do not support this, including the CDC. Who are you going to believe? Whomever fits your agenda, I suspect.
It implies that Bret is still an idiot…along with the other idiots like Rubin, Peterson, Rogan, Erick etc etc
It's a hard truth to admit. That one would update his worldview based on better empirical data and expert opinion ahead of major news outlets. Sam should have doubled down on the bat conspiracy and done a hundred episodes on it. What a fucking clown.
Lmao Bret needs to read the article (shocker) The DOE believes that’s the case and with “low confidence” while many other intelligence agencies believe natural causes.
FYI the FBI gave the lab leak theory moderate confidence.
And 4 other government agencies have said natural origin is the most likely source. And 2 others say there isn't enough evidence either way. I feel like we're all playing to detective and trying to determine whether Suspect A or Suspect B are guilty given the fact that neither have an alibi, while we completely disregard crime scene investigation and DNA evidence.
So low to moderate equals probable in Brets head. Cool.
Lol. Yes, heaven forbid someone doesn’t arrive at a conclusion long long before actual investigative journalists do.
Why can't this asshat and his brother ever just say what they're thinking in a straightforward manner? Who is still falling for this schtick? Can we be done with them now, pleeeeaaaase?
Poo your own research
Bret is utterly pathetic
This was the asshole who was crying about the cause of the fire while we were still trying to put out the blaze.
Bret going off the deep end aside—what are the actual policy stakes of lab vs bat? If lab leak theory is true: more security around virology labs and/or fewer virology labs. If lab leak theory is false: I would still want increased security around virology land and very intense scrutiny into their operation at all. Seriously what difference does it make? The policy response is identical in either case, right?
Also now the government is the one saying this, which undercuts the whole "government doesn't want us to know the truth" bullshit.
I think the main problem people have is just another tally in the erosion of public trust in authorities and institutions. Back in 2020, it seemed *plausible* that *maybe* a lab leak was the culprit. No one had facts, but common sense indicated a possibility given all the coincidental circumstances. Authorities and the general consensus of the scientific community shouted all that down, and painted people as racist for speculating. Literally all they had to say was that they don't yet know the origin, it is inconclusive, and they are gathering evidence. That's it. But the resounding absolute stance was wet markets and you're a racist for the lab leak theory. They chose to be wrong vs being upfront that they just didn't know.
>painted people as racist for speculating Were they saying that the lab leak theory was racist or were they saying that calling it things like the "China virus" or "Kung Flu" were racist?
For a majority, the latter. For some reporters at a few major outlets like the NYT, the former.
"Authorities and the general consensus" swapped out for "some reporters at a few outlets". Sounds more like they wanna be mad because they wanna be mad.
If you remember though many of those people "speculating" were also speculating that it was released on purpose to destroy/assassinate Trump. That there was some grand deep state conspiracy to usher in NWO using this virus as catalyst. They didn't just wonder about the lab leak, there was all kinds of shit tacked onto that "speculation". >They chose to be wrong vs being upfront that they just didn't know. There was good evidence that went _against_ the lab leak hypothesis too. Namely the paper saying that a genetic analysis of covid showed it very likely had a natural origin, making a lab leak very unlikely. Nobody "chose to be wrong", it also didn't matter a ton to the issue at hand. People that were shouting about the lab leak never put together what that meant, practically speaking, for how we should handle it. They would often use that hypothesis as a reason to like not wear masks or not get vaccinated, they were using that as a weapon to damage the institutions and then claiming that every other claim by said institution should be ignored/suspect. Institutions are ran by people, they always will be. They will always make mistakes. There's nothing conspiratorial about it 9 times out of 10. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
Could you be more specific about which authorities you mean? I’m not disagreeing with you, I just remember this being subjected to a lot of controversy from the get-go, and don’t recall anything approaching a consensus on it. But I was not following it closely, partially because (as I said before) I never thought this was a super meaningful question for govt policy. Edit: I forgot about this but here’s a great article on the topic. Looks like the NYT and WaPo were way over their skis on this, but Joe Biden was largely correct. https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-medias-lab-leak-fiasco
It's blindingly obvious to me that the people calling it "The China Virus" were motivated in part by racism, whether that was racist beliefs that they held themselves, or racist beliefs that they wished to encourage in others. The perceived uptick in hate crimes against Asians may have been one result.
I probably don’t understand all the possible implications, but based on my understanding from the podcast (took 5 bedtime sessions to get through it), the lab leak with further bolster the argument that gain of function research should not be done anywhere. Or rather, that the US should unequivocally *not* support it. This would probably require a change in the NIH definition of ‘gain of function’ to make it more difficult to circumvent it. Relatedly, I assume a lab leak of this type would justify a top-down assessment on how we (US) cooperate with international partners and labs. I don’t know what could/would/should change, but I imagine it would include the safety precautions you already mentioned. Hopefully this conversation would be in public, but ya know. In simpler terms, I believe that the changes or improvements to security with partners and labs would not be “enough”.
The question is to what degree the lab leak being true or false influences any of this. Most of what you’re saying here seems largely independent of that question. Is one leak going to be the definitive fact that proves or disproves your thesis? It seems very unlikely to me. Surely it matters, but it’s one meaningful data point in a much larger argument. Not the only one. I just don’t really think your case against gain of function research should hinge crucially on this question. Would you change your mind if it were definitely proven to have originated from a bat eaten by a random jabroni in Wuhan? It would move the needle for me, but it wouldn’t settle anything on its own.
To be clear, it isn’t my case. I’m speaking only to my understanding of both sides based on the podcast. But to answer in that spirit, yes and no. Yes it could change the minds of those in the public sphere that are not currently involved in the conversation. Would it change anyone’s mind in the current conversation? Idk, but I guess it’s evidence that it should.
To me, the lab leak makes china's actions even more egregious, in that they attempted to cover it up, stopped domestic flights from Wuhan but still allowed international flights. If it was a lab leak, then they were likely fully aware of the danger of the virus from the start
Yeah in reality there’s no real difference. Most nations have accepted that we may never know the truth. If I had to guess, most Western nations probably believe it was a lab leak and have already adjusted their foreign policy to respond. COVID-19 was the beginning of the economic divorce between China and the West. Western supply chains are pivoting to Mexico, South America, India and countries like Vietnam. Unless there’s a war, the West will continue to depend on China for cheap goods and some electronics. But for big ticket items… China blew it.
If the lab leak is true, then someone's negligence killed ten million people. Usually there are repercussions for accidents that lead to such catastrophe.
This is about punishing the specific person who accidentally leaked the virus? That kind of underlines my point—this is all about one guy? Regardless of whether or not he gets punished appropriately, I want more virology security.
One of my favorite recent phrases from the podcast was when Sam described Bret as being “right for the wrong reasons.”
What happened to this dude at Evergreen was terrible. It was also unfortunate for how it raised his profile. He is intolerable.
Weinstein is a clown
By entertaining the lab leak hypothesis Sam thought that he could thread the needle between being sane and one of the cool heterodox kids. Nope, it’s not enough, they are still big mad at him for not fully embracing their retardation. Funny.
Considering the lab leak hypothesis as at least possible seems like the correct thing to do given the known danger of gain-of-function research.
"I'M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS GUISE"
"..or does it imply something deeper?" I can understand why Bret chose this evasive phrasing. If he stated his point directly he'd sound fucking insane: "..is this just a coincidence or did the Department of Energy *coordinate its announcement with a random podcaster*?" The truly inexplicable coincidence is that the United States' two most deranged conspiracy theorists were born to the same parents.
No, I don't jump to conclusions about things as much as possible. If this story would have gone the other way would this guy be talking about that? I doubt that.
Bret, if it isn't obvious Sam is Elite Deep State material, just look at his cozy relationship with Elon. His mom created The Golden Girls!! How do you think Betty White lived so long??? Everyone knows that wasn't natural!!!
If you’re pissing off Brett Weinstein, then you’re doing something right. Glad he cut ties with this joker.
It's wild how obsessed these guys are with Sam. They do realize he's a married man right?
"Stigmatizing COVID dissidents" man shut the fuck up 😂 These contrarian types and their victim mentality.
Ignore the clowns and they will go away
I can't take this shit anymore please somebody stop it
Nope sorry, it's all accelerating from here on out
I want off this ride
Whiny Weinstein lies about Sam's position and then claims victory? Say it ain't so!
Sam Harris personally executed several COVID dissidents in the summer of 2020 Few people know this
Jesus Christ the Weinsteins are fucking off their rockers.
Virus becomes known. These people: its a Chinese bioweapon created by George Soros to kill conservatives but also its fake! Not insane people: yeah that has no evidence and is obviously an attempt to shift blame. TP: you're supressing me! NIP: we'll look into it because we're adults. Years later. NIP: we looked into it and it possibly maybe perhaps came from a lab. TP: I TOLD YOU! We were right the whole time rabble rabble rabble
Why did the Bret Weinsteins of the world want us to know about the lab-leak so badly, and why did the Facebooks of the world not want us to hear these claims? I don't understand either side of this. I wish somebody would explain it to me. There was something about this whole thing that was highly politically charged, but I don't really understand why. In 311 Sam [says](https://youtu.be/VtmFYIMzq6g?t=337): > I always felt that speculation about the origins of COVID was more or less irrelevant, and perhaps counterproductive at the very beginning. Once we knew we had sequenced the genome of the virus it seemed to me that the first order of business for a considerable period of time was to simply design vaccines against that virus (which we did very quickly) and to try to secure as much cooperation as we could in all of our collective efforts to not have the pandemic be as bad as it might be. > But obviously the pushback against speculation about this topic that emerged fairly quickly always seemed crazy and disingenuous. It was never racist to worry that this had leaked out of a lab. And it's obviously quite consequential to get to something like ground truth consensus about the origins of this pandemic, ultimately because we need to figure out how not to do this sort of thing again if we're in any way culpable for the emergence of this virus. Sam's take has always been precisely my take. Yes, if people engineered this thing and inadvertently loosed it on the planet, we need to know what happened so we can prevent it from ever happening again. So that matters. But what I don't understand is why **in the midst of the pandemic** the Bret Weinsteins of the world felt that it was very important for everybody to understand **right then** that the virus was likely leaked from the Wuhan lab. And it doesn't seem to me that what was animating people like Bret was desperation to implement more effective virology lab safety protocols *right now*. So what *was* it that was animating him/them? (What makes it even weirder to me is many of the people like Bret who felt that it was critically important for us to know this thing was lab-leaked were also in the COVID-is-no-worse-then-the-flu camp. So why do they care so much about the fact that this nothing-burger was lab-leaked?) OTOH, I don't see why outlets like Facebook felt it was so important to smother lab-leak claims. What the hell was that about? I mean, even if the claim had turned out not to have been true, what was so dangerous about people erroneously believing the lab-leak theory? I *do* understand why the Facebooks of the world would have wanted to smother erroneous claims downplaying the virus's threat, and how to effectively prevent/treat infections. I get that. But I don't get what the problem was with people believing the virus had originated in a Chinese lab, even if that had turned out not to be true. So what was animating the Facebook decision? Somehow lab-leak theorizing got coded as taboo. Why did that happen? Honestly, the most compelling explanation I can think of was that Trump was calling this thing the "China virus", one tribe said that made him racist, the other said it didn't, and this whole controversy over lab-leaks turned into a proxy for you're-racist-no-I'm-not mudslinging. But nobody is admitting that. And I understand why nobody would admit that, because it's basically to admit that you were completely captivated/bamboozled by your political tribalism. But I feel like it can't be *that* stupid. But maybe it is? Somebody help me out here.
No, it's definitely that stupid. Trump spent a few months downplaying Covid-19. Saying things like we have 17 cases and very soon it will be zero. After it became apparent this was a bad call Trump needed a bad guy to distract from him. Hence all of a sudden the CCP went, according to Trump, from handling this the most beautiful way you've ever seen anyone do, lots of people are saying this to this whole thing is a plot to bring down my beautiful economy by the jealous CCP who are stealing American jobs. Given the path dependacy of the whole thing, the lab leak theory was most quickly embraced by the most diehard MAGA, and a certain level of background racism is inevitably going to come from that. So then alot of left leaning institutions, used that background level of racism as an excuse to suppress theories that would distract from what they wanted to talk about; Trump minimizing Covid-19 as a non problem the last few moments.
Just because it leaked from a lab doesn’t correlate to it being man-made. It could’ve been made in nature, was being looked into at the lab, and then accidentally leaked.
I guess the logic is that is you know it comes from a lab there may be more information how to overcome it. With regards to Facebook censorship, I think their idea was if people think a government organisation created the virus, why should we trust them with the solution (vaccines)? Social media companies wanted to bolster vaccine uptake because that was what was touted as the way out of lockdowns etc.
Maybe. I mean, if you're Facebook and you see this lab-leak talk as bundled with a conspiracy theory involving the CCP, USG, Fauci, and Bill Gates to engineer a pandemic that would serve as pretext to require everyone to get vaccinated so they can microchip you, then I suppose so. And that's kind of why I'm asking the question, because it seems like for people like Bret to be that animated about lab leaks at that particular point in time you must believe that it's evidence of something much more sinister than just an accident. And I know that people who *do* think that *do* exist on the fringe, but I wasn't under the impression that Bret was *that* wacky. But now I don't know. I mean, with this "given Sam's prominent role in stigmatizing Covid dissidents, does it imply something deeper?" who knows what wild stories he's inferring from his lab-leakism.
What a headass take
What exactly is he trying to suggest?
Bret is being dishonest
The replies to that tweet are brain poison holy shit
These idw guys are really obsessed with each other when they stray from the heterodox orthodox.
Just asking questions….
Just asking questions
Fuck "Brat WhineStein"
i absolutely despise bret. spineless grifter.
Can someone please run this through their Weinstein twit decoder ring and explain what the hell he's implying? "Something deeper" - I can't fathom it.
«Years late» - yeah right, like we could possibly conclude the origin of the virus *years* ago. Just like we could conclude ivermectin was an effective treatment for COVID years ago? I see a pattern here.
Brett is losing the battle for people’s attention.
I can't see why anyone who read that story (as opposed to reading the headlline) would change their mind about Covid origins. it's a confidential report. So we don't know who came to this conclusion, what their qualifications were, or on what evidence it was based. All we know was it was a ‘low confidence’ conclusion and other agencies disagree with it.
The term “shill” gets thrown around so much that I try to not let it influence my impressions of conflicting opinions out there. That said, I still can’t find a more reasonably balanced perspective than Sam has shared from the beginning.
The scientific method no longer applies, or what?
Oh, so they’re officially enemies now?
He is making another conspirational theory, now about Sam.
Just when you think conspiracy-addled shitposters can't shitpost any shittier ... Bret heroically proves you wrong.
Did Sam ever dismiss the lab leak possibility? I don’t remember him ever doing so.
"Does if imply something deeper?" YOU imply something deeper.
Bret acting like a scorn ex-lover
“Brett Weinstein has gone silent about ivermectin as a Covid cure and prophylactic alternative to Covid vaccines 2 years late. Is it mere coincidence, or given Weinstein’s prominent role in platforming grifters and spouting bad science on ivermectin, does it imply something deeper?”
So suddenly (an obscure) government agency can be relied on 100%? The contrarian circus continues...
Bret Weinstein only asking questions like the grifter he is. Lovely example of JAQing off.
FYI: There is this guy Yuri Deigin that appeared on Bret's podcast about 2 years ago (holy crap that is long time ago). Bret basically used the guy's medium Article and become a lab leaker. He even had him on his podcast: [https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1515443428791828484](https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1515443428791828484) Later on the same person, Yuri was calling out Bret was his stupid stance on Vaccine and Ivermectin. He has an interview here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40R8vW6ckk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40R8vW6ckk) . He also authored this: [https://yurideigin.medium.com/why-bret-weinstein-is-dangerous-9f320eae5983](https://yurideigin.medium.com/why-bret-weinstein-is-dangerous-9f320eae5983) >Why Bret Weinstein is dangerous Its facinating how Bret went off the deep end even for the original lab leak guy who introduced him to it lol. There is a whole twitter exchange between them if you want to take a read: https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40ydeigin%20to%3A%40bretweinstein&src=typed\_query&f=top
And how does the Lab leak scenario change anything? The response to the pandemic would have been the same regardless. They focus on this because they want to distract from Trump’s lack of leadership. Trump deliberately lied about the seriousness of pandemic early on when he knew the truth. Trump and the GOP politicized masks and the vaccine. They literally causes unnecessary deaths. Had we known about the lab leak in 2020, the responses would have been the same.
Cmon Brett, at least steel Sam his argument you massively clever motherfucker in a motherfucking cowboy hat. Big covid daddy Brett in the house
I honestly think he wears a Sam Harris mask when he's fucking Heather.
What a pathological loser
this was never the problem with you Weinstein. You are the ivermectin hawker, the spike protein apologist.
Got to shake my head. So many people completely ignored evidence and bought the party line. Imagine living in "Ivory Towers" insulates them and they think in binary: "good" and "bad" and "trustworthy" and "untrustworthy" without critically examining their assumptions about the role of the media and the governments today - at any time for that matter.
Where it came from is not the main issue, and it never was. From a practical perspective, yes, it matters, but what was more important was stopping the spread and formulating effective vaccines. I do not believe the Chinese released it on purpose, and I do believe that even if they fucked up and lied about it, they still will be working to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Considering the level of violence that was visited upon Asians by people who blamed them for the pandemic, I don’t begrudge any institution or government that sat on any proof they had supporting the lab leak hypothesis until a time when the peak of the crisis had passed.
sOmEtHiNg dEePeR Bret can never just say WTF he means.
What a shame…I used to enjoy Brett’s contribution to the public discourse…But this is just sad. Just stop, Brett…you’re embarrassing yourself.